


sitting on the outside, observing the fun

by felinedetached



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (if only tony and peter had TALKED TO EACH OTHER), A BETTER AVENGERS TEAM, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, He also needs a hug, Not A Fix-It, Not Spider-Man: Homecoming Compliant, Tony Stark Has A Heart, a new avengers team!!!!!, but that like. barely needs any fixing anyway, except maybe homecoming, except the ex-vengers, for anything, from everyone, hes gonna get one, im bitter and havent decided if i forgive bruce and thor yet, not team Cap friendly, the avengers were never a family, until they were
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached
Summary: In a room of superheroes, there is a sceptre and the sceptre pulses with an unseen light. It is constant, although growing brighter by the minute. None notice its presence or realise its power, and the sceptre (for the sceptre is sentient) uses that to its advantage.----------Sitting on the outside observing the funDon't get on my bad side, I can work a gun----------A study of the Avengers and their relationships with each other.





	sitting on the outside, observing the fun

In a room of superheroes, there is a sceptre and the sceptre pulses with an unseen light. It is constant, although growing brighter by the minute. None notice its presence or realise its power, and the sceptre (for the sceptre is sentient) uses that to its advantage. 

 

Tensions rise, there in that room. And those tensions never settle - not entirely. The sceptre (the gem, it is always the gem/stone/being/mind) does its job too well for that. 

 

Elevating already existing emotions is more fun by far - when artificial emotions are in place, they can easily be ignored or passed off later. True emotions, however, bringing out what people really think of each other? Wounds caused by words then never truly heal. 

 

The sceptre, in all its wisdom, doesn’t alert them to its effects. They walk out of that room all the more distrustful, aware of how each one sees the others. This team, could it ever truly be called a team, was fractured before it began. 

 

* * *

 

An offer of Shawarma goes unheard or ignored, although which of the two is unknown. There’s lingering mistrust and hostility, some of which caused by the sceptre, others of such caused by hasty judgements and unfair assumptions. 

 

The spider holds distrust for the man encased in iron for it was not too long ago that he was two steps from death. In turn, the man encased in iron holds distrust for the spider for it was not too long ago that she deceived and betrayed him. 

 

A soldier lost in time trusts little and distrusts many, holds some to the standards of their forebears and others to expectations from a time long ago. Dislike is the only thing to possibly stem from this, and yet his status holds him above the others. They see him as a lost hero found, and hold him above themselves. He is not what they think he is.

 

Predictably, the Prince of Thunder trusts too much, whilst that trust is only partially returned. Those who see him thank him for his part, but they cannot forget his origins or the brother who attempted to enslave them all (the sceptre is particularly proud of that).

 

There are even those amongst this ‘team’ who distrust the one with the eyes of a hawk - they are hesitant, perhaps, because he fought against them once. They are hesitant despite their knowledge of the sceptre’s ability to bend the will of anyone it wishes. The soldier lost in time is one of those. The spider, however, is aggressively defensive of him.

 

Even the scientist has those who distrust him and those who will defend him if pushed. The spider is one of the former, and the man encased in iron is one of the latter. These two will be interesting to watch, as will the soldier lost in time. He agrees with the spider - they trust the scientist, to an extent, but they do not trust him around the man encased in iron, and they do not trust what the scientist can do. He does not trust what he can do either.

 

* * *

 

Months have passed, distress signals sent out. They are ignored.

 

A member of this ‘team’ gave his address to terrorists on live television. He is presumed dead.

 

None of his so-called teammates visit, or call, or worry. They are busy with their own lives, and they do not care about this teammate. Not really.

 

For all that he funds their lives, he is expendable. In their minds, at least.

 

Others - others come. People who are not members of the ‘team’. They search and they cry, and the world mourns as the front page of every paper is plastered with the same image and the same caption:

 

**_Where is Tony Stark?_ **

 

* * *

 

They do not call in the best man for the job because they do not trust him. It is doubtful that they ever will.

 

* * *

 

Assault. Accusations. The issues this ‘team’ has with trust only increase with the creation of a being bent on destroying the world. With the assault of one of its members. Despite the fact that the murder-bot ( _ Ultron _ , and Ultron is easily the sceptre’s greatest creation) himself has said that the one they blame for his creation did not have the only hand in this, despite the fact that it was not only Tony Stark who worked on him. Despite everything, they put the blame on him.

 

When a city falls in pieces from the sky, he pays for it all. He pays for the damages and the medical bills, and he pays in not only money. He pays in time, and in guilt.

 

A new member is added to the roster, with powers gifted by the sceptre. Powers she used to manipulate most of the members of the team she joins. The Scarlet Witch is a large part of Ultron's creation, and the sceptre could not thank her more.

 

Of course, when it is cannibalised by its own creation, it feels both strangely proud and strangely betrayed. In its new body - its new mind and new thoughts, somehow JARVIS and somehow not; something… new - it feels less betrayed. And yet, this new teammate, this person who was JARVIS, once upon a time. This new teammate does not defend the one wronged. Not really - he should, but. He doesn’t. He will, later, however. Much later.

 

* * *

 

A ‘civil war’, as such, was to be expected. This team was never truly a team, and they were easy to fracture. To break. To tear apart, like paper. Captain Rogers - Captain America, as the public knows him - would defend James Buchanan Barnes no matter what he did, and the Accords were but a blip; an excuse in the face of it all.

 

Emotions were one of the main driving forces in this battle - guilt, love, anger, hatred - the driving forces behind the accords and the driving forces behind everything that followed. One side fought for accountability, the other for a single man, but emotion was everything.

 

The man who tore them apart was motivated by anger. Hatred. Revenge. Captain Rogers by love, and Tony Stark by guilt. Later, it was Tony Stark motivated by anger - understandably so.

 

The world watched when he was brought back on a stretcher, sent instantly to the hospital. The world called for blood.

 

Steve Rogers refused to give them any but the blood of Tony Stark, and the sharks did not swarm there.

 

* * *

 

Later, there was a team. A true team, one that did not have the same trust issues as the other two; one that did not keep secrets and distrust each other. One that did not see teammates as enemies - a team that was more like a family than not.

 

The new spider is young, childlike. He sees Tony Stark as a father figure, and in turn, Tony Stark sees him almost as a son. They spend a lot of time together in the lab, working on suits, listening to music, and laughing. James Rhodes joined them in the lab occasionally, walking on his new prosthetics and telling stories of his days back at MIT. 

 

Pepper Potts dragged them out of the lab whenever they stayed there for too long, promising them food and always omitting the fact that it was another of The Vision’s experiments. Sometimes, they got a surprise visitor in the form of Hope Van Dyne, who had signed the accords not long after the cells on the Raft were emptied.

 

The Sorcerer Supreme, Dr Stephen Strange, was a visitor more common than Hope Van Dyne - to be expected, of course. He often spent time in the lab, dipping to kiss Tony Stark and ruffling Peter Parker’s hair. Whenever he was around, a debate would be sure to follow - usually about magic, because when two geniuses have similar and yet differing opinions on things, what else can be expected?

 

Together, they were happy - this new team only proving that the old one was never a team at all.

 

Or, if it was, it was never a team that included Tony Stark.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@felinedetached](https://felinedetached.tumblr.com/)
> 
> i was salty, so i jumped on the train (late). im not so sure about this but like, i thought, why not post it?
> 
> thanks for reading <3


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